Nuclear waste could be dumped under our National Parks

The Guardian reports on the recommendation by the parliamentary BEIS committee (Business, energy & industrial strategy, if you were wondering) that underground dumps for nuclear waste might have to be placed under National Parks.

Not surprisingly, the government is finding it difficult to bribe local communities to accept nuclear fuel dumps in their vicinity. A 2013 plans to construct a £12bns facility in Cumbria was soundly kicked into touch by local opposition despite the financial incentives offered to the region.

Waste from the nuclear energy industry is something which doesn’t go away; no one really knows quite how long this stuff needs to be buried for and so it is impossible to quantify the costs involved. This is why governments - well, us, really - end up on the hook for decommissioning and cleaning up after the plants have finished generating. If the fact that it is way over budget, years late, probably unsafe and will produce some of the world’s most expensive electricity weren’t enough reasons to halt the blighted Hinkley C project, the cost to the taxpayer of storing the waste into infinity and beyond should do it.